1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electrical card connector assemblies, and more particularly to an electrical card connector assembly having improved ESD (electrostatic discharge) protection.
2. Description of Related Arts
With a digital development of the electronic technology, removable electric products that are taken away with people themselves, such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), Digital Still Cameras (DSC) or etc, are more and more popular. The electronic product requires an electrical card for storing message, and then transferring information between the electronic product and another one. Such kind of card with rapider accessing speed and lower electricity is more and more used and becomes a standard in an electronic field.
An electrical card connector is usually assembled on a printed circuit board (PCB) of an electronic product and the electrical card connector in daily use usually includes a shield for preventing EMI (Electro Magnetic Interference). However, electrostatic charges is usually accumulated thereon and may damage to both the electrical card and the electronic product. So, grounding elements are acquired urgently for discharging the electrostatic charges. An electrical card connector 1′ as we know is shown as FIGS. 1-3, which includes an insulating housing 10′, a plurality of terminals 11′, a covering shield 12′, an ejector 13′ and etc. The covering shield 12′ is partially assembled on the insulating housing 11′ at a front part thereof. A rear part of the covering shield 12′ comprises a bottom piece 121′, a pair of lateral pieces 122′ extending vertically and upward from two edges of the bottom piece 121′ and a pair of top pieces 123′ each extending from a free end of the lateral piece 122′ along a direction parallel to the bottom piece 121′. So, the bottom piece 121′ associates the lateral pieces 122′ and the top pieces 123′ to define a card receiving room. Each top piece 123′ forms a grounding piece 124′ at a middle part thereof and the grounding pieces 124′ bend toward the PCB 2′ for contacting with grounding pads 20′ of the PCB 2′ to discharge electrostatic charges. However, the grounding piece 124′ is formed in a shape that a thickness in a vertical direction is smaller than a width in a level direction, and as a result, a rigidity of the grounding piece 124′ along the vertical direction is small and a large pressure may damage it so that the grounding pieces 124′ are not in excellent connection with the grounding pads 20′ of the PCB 2′ and obviously, the grounding purpose is not achieved. Secondly, the grounding piece 124′ is formed on the top piece 123′ which extends vertically and upward from the bottom piece 121′ and then continues to extend horizontally to form the card receiving room, it makes a structure of this product complicated and the manufacturing process rather troublesome. Additionally, for the grounding piece 124′ is hidden underside the covering shield 1′, we can't make sure whether a correct connection is achieved or not between the grounding pieces 124′ and the grounding pads 20′ in the assembling process but only to be noticed in use during which there may be an accident. For example, a great quantity of the electrical card connectors provided to customers don't suit for their requirement in size because of some man-made mistakes, some accident said above may occur.
Hence, an improved electrical card connector assembly is desired.